However - and here Old Miseryguts disgusts and embarasses everyone in the room - I do not think that a story can be reliably created, with players as co-creators, via the means of Actor Stance, continuous suspension of disbelief, immersion (as narrowly defined), or anything similar. I articulated my point of view on Epoch's thread "'Story,' Actor Stance, and My Guy-ism," specifically in the post on October 17, 13:23. El Dorado does not exist, say I.

I'm going to disagree with Ron on this one. I went back and re-read the thread above and I can think of one type of game where I have seen story consistently created using only the tools mentioned.

Online freeform chat room roleplay, usually involving 2-3 people. The line became "game" and "interactive literature" is very thin, mind you. However, given that what the participants are saying that they are doing is "gaming", I'm willing to include it as an RPG game.

The users can become so immersed and typing so fast that they lose awareness of their own time-space and withdraw from author stance to complete actor stance for hours on end- easily staying in immersed, actor mode only for 2-4 hours (as long as most table top games) at a time and creating story during their entire immersion.

This particular kind of game (online freeform) tends to:1. Lack a GM, requiring all players to assume directorial power so that they are co-creating the environment on an unconscious level.

2. Lack the subtle cues and priorities from other players because there is no face-to-face communication.

This isn't to say that hidden or obvious Author stance doesn't exist in online freeform- its certainly more common that pure Actor stance. However, I've pet the unicorn, touched the pot of gold, witnessed the gates of El Dorado often enough to say "Its more than a myth!" *g*

Now, can anyone cause this El Dorado of mine to -intentionally- happen at a given time and place? Nope. It happens as a phenomenon in my opinion, because of a unique set of circumstances.